Method and systems for distributed signals for use with advertising

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems for providing an automated virtualized signal marketplace or exchange for signals from distributed data sources for use in advertising. Systems and methods to automatically discover and recommend which of the signals controlled by multiple entities may be most effective toward a given objective associated with advertising campaigns. Signals are indicators of data that are derived from data sources and abstracted to protect the underlying data. Each entity that sells data in the virtual marketplace first converts data into a “signal” or indicator that represents the data without disclosing it or providing it. Signal sellers determine if they want share signals based upon buyer, price, and other rules, including limitations on signal use; signal buyers determine signal value based upon their objectives.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.61/791,297, filed Mar. 15, 2013, which is incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to methods and systems for providing avirtual marketplace or exchange for distributed signals or indicators bysignal sellers for distribution and sale to signal buyers, for usetoward advertising and/or marketing.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Generally, it is known in the prior art to provide market signals asinformation passed between participants in a market. Examples ofrelevant art documents include the following:

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0178845 for “System andMethod for Matching Merchants to a Population of Consumers” by inventorsRane, et al., filed Jan. 20, 2010, describes a process of data analysisfor the purpose of improving targeted advertising and analytics of data,with the major focus on drawing useful inferences for various entitiesfrom aggregated data, wherein entities are not limited to businesses andmay include government agencies (census, polling data, etc.).

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0233206 for “Methods andSystems for Electronic Data Exchange Utilizing Centralized ManagementTechnology” by inventors Peterson, et al., filed May 24, 2012, describesan exchange of data among business entities and the process ofdisclosing/receiving data and a central management system for companiesengaged in strategic partnership or alliance, whereas Patent 1 dealswith a market place dynamic rather than a data exchange within alocked-in partnership management.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0066062 for “Systems andMethods to Present Triggers for Real-Time Offers” by inventors Yoder, etal., filed Aug. 8, 2011, describes collecting consumer transaction datafor the benefit of targeted advertisements and an auctioning process(auction engine) for providing data clusters to clients. For example,cardholders may register in a program to receive offers, such aspromotions, discounts, sweepstakes, reward points, direct mail coupons,email coupons, etc. The cardholders may register with issuers, or withthe portal of the transaction handler. Based on the transaction data ortransaction records and/or the registration data, the profile generatoris to identify the clusters of cardholders and the values representingthe affinity of the cardholders to the clusters. Various entities mayplace bids according to the clusters and/or the values to gain access tothe cardholders, such as the user. For example, an issuer may bid onaccess to offers; an acquirer and/or a merchant may bid on customersegments. An auction engine receives the bids and awards segments andoffers based on the received bids. Thus, customers can get great deals;and merchants can get customer traffic and thus sales.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0246309 for “Method, storedprogram, and system for improving descriptive profiles” by inventorShkedi, filed May 25, 2011, describes a process that enables entities toacquire databanks of user profiles that can add to existing knowledge ofuser profile data and the process is described as a transaction in thatthe entities disclose a set of profile information in exchange foradditional, helpful data relevant to the disclosed data.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0323954 for “Systems andmethods for cooperative data exchange” by inventors Bonalle, et al.,filed Jun. 14, 2011, describes methods that enable business entities togain greater, useful insights on their customers and build upon theirrelatively limited data via consumer data exchange, wherein uponsharing/merging/exchanging customer data, businesses can performanalysis to improve their business performance, and provides an examplewherein original data may consist of a list of consumers, which can beenriched with the consumers' transaction history, search history, etc.via data exchange with other entities that own such information.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0262497 for “System andMethods for Controlling Bidding on Online Advertising Campaigns” byinventor Karlsson, filed Apr. 10, 2009, describes a system for managingbid prices of an online advertising campaign. The system includes amemory storing instructions for adjusting bid prices, and a campaigncontroller for generating a nominal bid price and a perturbationparameter, based on an ad request received from an advertiser. Thesystem further includes an engine for generating a perturbed bid pricebased on the nominal bid price and the perturbation parameter, accordingto the instructions stored in the memory. The system further includes aserving unit for serving an ad impression based on the perturbed bidprice. Also discloses that advertisers can bid on desired online addelivery for their ad campaigns, describes management of the biddingprocess by managing and adjusting the bid price and describes systemsand methods for a biddable multidimensional marketplace for advertising.

European Patent Application Publication No. 2063387 for “Systems andmethods for a biddable multidimensional marketplace for advertising on awireless communication device” by inventors Maggenti, et al., filed Mar.31, 2008, describes providing targeted advertisements via mobiledevices, and systems, methods and apparatus for a multidimensionalbidding marketplace for providing advertising content to wirelessdevices. In particular, aspects allows advertising providers, to defineand/or identify a one or more wireless device-based transient factorsfrom a plurality of factors, which serve to define a targetedadvertising audience and to bid on advertising based on the selected oridentified transient factors.

European Patent Application No. 2076877 (also published as U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2008/0103795) for “Lightweight andheavyweight interfaces to federated advertising marketplace” byinventors Biggs, et al., filed Oct. 18, 2007, describes a multi-partyadvertising exchange including advertising and publishing entities fromdifferent advertising networks, the invention provides architectures foran online advertising marketplace that range from lightweight toheavyweight implementations. A lightweight client side implementation ofan interface includes centralized processing and storage of federatedadvertising marketplace data by centralized servers or services. Aheavyweight client side implementation of an interface for advertisingentities includes providing a peer instance of a federated advertisingexchange application or set of processes is provided to each advertisingentity as an interface for advertising entities where processing andstorage are performed locally to each peer instance. Distributedadvertising data can be replicated or synchronized with other peerinstances.

U.S. Pat. No. 8,224,725 for “Escrowing digital property in a secureinformation vault” by inventors Grim, et al., filed Sep. 15, 2005,describes that data can be escrowed by receiving escrow parametersincluding a condition(s) for releasing the escrowed data, and an escrowrecipient. An escrow contract is then created based upon the specifiedescrow parameters. The escrowing further includes storing the digitaldata in a secure information vault, and storing the escrow contract,along with a pointer to the stored data, in a database. When thecondition has been satisfied, the data is released to the escrowrecipient. The condition(s) for release can be a payment sum, a date, anindication from a depositor, a trustee or a vault administrator, and/orfulfillment of another escrow contract; also describes keeping datasecure and releasing data to certain parties upon satisfaction ofcertain criteria.

U.S. Pat. No. 8,285,610 for “System and method of determining thequality of enhanced transaction data” by inventors Engle, et al., filedMar. 26, 2009, describes “enhanced data”, non-financial data beyond theprimary transaction data and includes invoice level and line itemdetails (for examples see background section) which is collected at themerchant and delivered to a financial service network.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0264497 for “Systems andMethods to Transfer Tax Credits” by inventor Clyne, filed Apr. 25, 2011,includes disclosure for a list of references describing acquiringconsumer purchase data.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0264567 for “Systems andMethods to Provide Data Services” by inventor Clyne, filed Apr. 25,2011, describes providing access to data of diverse sources in general,and more particularly, transaction data, such as records of payment madevia credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, etc., and/or informationbased on or relevant to the transaction data; also describes thattransaction data can be used for various purposes and that transactiondata or information derived from transaction data may be provided tothird parties.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0066064 for “Systems andMethods to Provide Real-Time Offers via a Cooperative Database” byinventors Yoder, et al., filed Sep. 2, 2011, describes a computingapparatus is configured to: store transaction data recordingtransactions processed by a transaction handler; organize third partydata according to community, where the third party data includes firstdata received from a first plurality of entities of a first communityand second data received from a second plurality of entities of a secondcommunity; and responsive to a request from a merchant in the secondcommunity, present an offer of the merchant in the second community tousers identified via the transaction data and the first data receivedfrom the first plurality of entities of the first community. In oneembodiment, the first data provides permission from the merchant in thefirst community to allow the merchant in the second community to useintelligence information of the first community to identify users fortargeting offers from the merchant in the second community.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0054189 for “User ListIdentification” by inventors Moonka, et al., filed Aug. 30, 2011,describes systems, methods, computer program products are provided forpresenting content. An example computer implemented method includesidentifying, by a data exchange engine executing on one or moreprocessors, one or more user lists based on owned or permissioned data,each user list including a unique identifier; associating metadata witheach user list including data describing a category for the user list,population data describing statistical or inferred data concerning alist or members in a given user list and subscription data includingdata concerning use of a given user list; storing in a searchabledatabase a user list identifier and the associated metadata; andpublishing for potential subscribers a list of the user lists includingproviding an interface that includes for each user list the uniqueidentifier and the associated metadata.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,850,900 for “Full service secure commercial electronicmarketplace” by inventors Hare, et al., filed Jun. 19, 2000, describesan electronic marketplace, and in particular to a full service securecommercial electronic marketplace which generically organizes, stores,updates, and distributes product information from a plurality ofsuppliers to facilitate multiple levels of sourcing, including contractand off-contract purchasing between the suppliers and a plurality ofbuyers.

None of the prior art references discloses the systems and methods ofthe present invention for using signals for targeted advertising; or forproviding a signals marketplace for value-based exchange of signalsinformation between buyers and sellers, while ensuring protection of theunderlying data represented by the signals; or pricing data signalsbased upon value derived from the use of data signals as observed byexternal parties, such as from object behavior and feedback; or formaintaining data in a federated model in control of the data owner; orfor allowing federated data owners to set rules, parameters, terms andpricing for the release of information to approved buyers; or for remotesignal owners to constrain signal release based upon use; or forconsumers and or regulators to permission use of signals and other datataken by third parties through observations one or more signals; or fora common taxonomy for signal creation, communication, exchange and usewithin a federated model with local control; or for external objects,events, activities and behaviors to inform indexing and correlation oflocally held data in a federated data model; or for third partyobservers participate in a federated marketplace to provide feedback onobjects for the benefit of a of sellers and buyers; or for externalobservations to inform locally held and remotely held correlations ofdistributed data; or for prospective data buyers to discover relevantsignals from within a federated marketplace which manages distributeddata; or for a centralized market to manage rules and provide forclearing and settlement of federated data (signals), or for multipleparticipants and/or multiple federated data sources to act in concerttoward a common objective, with each participant paid based upon valuedelivered or price agreed to; or for correlating federated informationbased upon performance of that information in achieving a desiredobjective; or for third party observers to participate in a federateddata market or for constructing signals for controlled distribution anduse by the signal owner and/or for generating signals from locallycontrolled and isolated sources for indexing, correlation, discovery anduse in a federated model with a multiplicity of other signals andparticipants. Thus, the creation of signals or indicators for a signalsmarketplace is important for providing secure, private and controlledrelease of information for value that is determined by a structured andrules-based distributed virtual marketplace for signals for use inadvertising.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to methods and systems for providing avirtual marketplace or exchange for distributed signals or indicators bysignal sellers for distribution and sale to signal buyers for use inmarketing and/or advertising.

The distributed signals are constructed by signal sellers bytransforming raw data into signals or indicators, which facilitatebuying and selling distributed information through these signals orindicators without disclosing the underlying data. The signals arederived from data sources and abstracted to protect the underlying data.Signals are constructed in such a way that they protect the underlyingdata, but have consistency and relevance toward a given objective. Thecontent of the seller's signal is based upon a current or historicalinteraction with one or more events, objects or activities thatcorrespond to the behavior of an object. Signals are constructed aroundone or more reference point for the seller to create the signalspayload. The signal structure provides for secure and reliabletransportation and translation of the information payload containedwithin a signal. The signal construct defines the source, thedestination, the delivery channel, the method for securing the data, theagreement under which the data is exchanged, a transaction identifier, atransaction time, information necessary to confirm receipt, templatewhich describes the message type, and the payload of the message.

Each entity that sells data in the virtual marketplace first convertsdata into a “signal” or indicator, the construction of the signal is inthe control of the data owner, different signal constructs will haverelevance toward different objectives and signal buyers. The signal orindicator construct allows the signal seller to abstract the underlyingdata without being or disclosing the actual data itself, i.e., thesignal functions like metadata. The economic value of the signal dependson the price each buyer is willing to pay, which depends on the valuethat the signal has toward a given objective. The virtual marketplacebrings buyers and sellers of signals together and communicates thehistory of signal effectiveness for each objective. Sellers of signalsdefine rules governing how to sell signals based upon virtualmarketplace historical data, buyer, agreements, price, effectiveness,consumer permissions, competitive concerns and other rules. Buyers havethe opportunity to bid for information within the rules of themarketplace and the rules of the seller. Signals (or indicators of datathat do not disclose the data), and the associated virtual marketplacefacilitate the discovery of signals for a use, pricing of signals for adefined use, the creation of agreements for use, the regulatory andconsumer permission of use, the transmission and tracking during use,the value created after the use, and for the clearing and settlementbased upon observations after the use and under the terms of theagreement.

It is an aspect of this invention to provide methods and systems forproviding an automated virtualized signal marketplace or exchange forsignals from distributed data sources that are controlled by amultiplicity of signal sellers or signal owners wherein the signals areused in advertising. Yet another aspect of the present invention is toprovide systems and methods to automatically discover and recommendwhich of the signals controlled by multiple entities may be mosteffective toward a given objective associated with advertisingcampaigns. Still another aspect of the invention is to provide a virtualmarketplace by which a prospective buyers can purchase these distributedsignals, which includes a mechanism for both the buyers and the sellersto create agreements, exchange information within the terms ofagreement, ensure regulatory and consumer approval of use, track theperformance of the usage, and settle under the terms of the agreementand the observed use within advertising campaigns. Embodiments of thepresent invention for using signals in advertising and advertisingcampaigns may also include: statistical methods for optimizing signalselection for advertising campaigns operating with a signals marketplaceor exchange; statistical methods for optimizing advertising distributionchannel based upon signal information; and/or methods of definingcampaign types supported by the signal marketplace, wherein advertisingcampaigns can begin with a target, or advertising campaigns can bemanaged by distributor in a bid for consumer access by competingadvertising campaigns.

These and other aspects of the present invention will become apparent tothose skilled in the art after a reading of the following description ofthe preferred embodiment when considered with the drawings, as theysupport the claimed invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram of an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the inventionillustrating components and functions of the signals data marketplace.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the inventionillustrating components and functions relating to signals management.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram is a schematic diagram illustratingcampaign management for signals in advertising.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram illustrating a computer system for thepresent invention.

FIG. 8 is another schematic diagram illustrating a computer system forthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring now to the drawings in general, the illustrations are for thepurpose of describing a preferred embodiment of the invention and arenot intended to limit the invention thereto.

The present invention provides methods and systems for using buying andselling distributed data through a virtual marketplace or exchange usingsignals or indicators that represent the data without disclosing thedata. By way of background, creators of signals are the sellers ofinformation. The content of a seller's information based upon anhistorical interaction with one or more events, objects or activitiesthat correspond to the behavior of a multitude of objects. Sellers ofdata or information have multiple requests to share their information.Signals or indicators are a mechanism to share derived informationwithout disclosing the raw data. The value of any asset is highlycorrelated to the price that buyers are willing to pay.

There is a longstanding and unmet need for providing an automated,virtual signals data marketplace or exchange where signal creators (alsothe signal sellers and/or signal owners) selectively provide informationof interest to signal buyers for defined uses, while protecting theunderlying data and maintaining the control of the signal seller throughits usage within a network-based, distributed data exchange whereeconomic value of the data, as derived from its use, is the centralpricing mechanism within agreements between the sellers and buyers.Nothing in infinite supply can have a price. Data may theoretically havean infinite value, but once it is shared, further dissemination is hardto prevent, thus the value of data quickly diminishes once it is shared.It is an objective of the Signals Exchange Marketplace to create amarket for data within a signal or indicator framework, which protectsthe underlying data that the signals or indicators represent. Thissignals metaphor allows each signal or indicator provider/owner/sellerthe ability to construct, control and price their signals, protectfurther dissemination of both the signals, as well as the underlyingdata and constrain use of data for defined objectives.

In one embodiment of the present invention for providing a signalsmarketplace or signal exchange for distributed signal sellers and signalbuyers, a method for combining one or more signals from distributed datasources controlled by a multiplicity of owners for a shared objectivewithin a signal marketplace is provided, including the steps of:providing at least one signal from a first data source and at least onesignal from a second data source; wherein the signals originate fromdifferent distributed data sources controlled by different owners andthe signals are registered in a centralized database and each of thesignals is indexed in the centralized database based upon ownership,object relevance, behavior relevance, historical usage, performance, andcorrelation to other signals and data.; and, wherein the value isautomatically generated by each corresponding remote server computerassociated with the remote database, based upon at least two factorsassociated with the value, and wherein the value includes relevance to asignal buyer and a buyer objective. By way of example and notlimitation, the relevance to the signal buyer is based upon at least oneobjective, with the economic value of the signal based upon the measuredperformance of at least one signal toward at least one objective by thebuyer. Preferably, the at least two factors are selected from:predictive accuracy, fidelity, relevance to an objective,near-real-timeliness, frequency, recency, state of an object,relationship of the source of the signal, reputation of the signal,reputation of the seller, affinity to a target, and/or usefulness to anobjective. By way of example and not limitation, a restaurant wishes toadvertise after the showing of a movie at a movie theater. The movietheater has a signal LEAVING MOVIE THEATER for a given object, orconsumer. The campaign manager that manages the advertising campaign foran Italian restaurant finds the movie theater signal of use, but mustgain additional information to determine which consumers leaving themovie theater prefer Italian food. The campaign manager requestsAFFINITY to ITALIAN FOOD for a given object or consumer from theconsumer's bank. Thus signals sourced from a bank and a movie theaterare both used for a common objective of providing an advertisement forItalian food to a consumer leaving a movie theater.

The method may include additional steps including: aggregating thesignals; creating a new signal or a synthetic signal from one or moresignals from at least one source; linking the indexed signals torelational databases, wherein the signals are locally indexed by eachsignal owner and/or each seller associated with the signals; the virtualmarketplace server computer and/or the owners creating and trackingtheir corresponding indexed signals; updating the remote and centralizedindices of signals; and/or tracking and updating agreements for buyingand selling signals.

A system for providing a signals marketplace in a virtualized computernetwork for generating signals from distributed data sources controlledby a multiplicity of owners and further includes at least the followingcomponents and their relationships with each other: a remote servercomputer constructed and configured in network-based communication witha centralized database further comprising at least one index for signalsdata, and operable to automatically generate an assigned valuecorresponding to each unique signal created by a signal seller within aremote index of signals data; wherein the remote indexed signals dataare generated from remote structured and unstructured data. Receiving atleast one signal from a first data source and at least one signal from asecond data source, wherein the marketplace registers remote signals,which originate from different distributed data sources controlled bydifferent owners into a centralized database or signals index; whereineach of the registered signals has a corresponding listing in thecentral database or index, a structure which conforms a marketplacetaxonomy, a unique identifier for the signal type registered to eachsignal owner, and a unique identifier for each signal exchanged for eachtype from each owner; and, wherein each signal created by the remoteowner has an assigned value based on at least two factors both of whichare dependent upon a underlying raw data held by the seller and a buyerobjective. Preferably, the signals marketplace system automaticallyrecommends signals, and the price for a given usage for both signalbuyers signal sellers or signal owners. Additionally or alternatively,the recommended pricing is automatically generated based upon a numberof factors, including relevance to an objective, fidelity,near-real-timeliness or recency, affinity, predictive accuracy, andcombinations thereof, and/or is negotiated in a bid-response exchangebetween the owners and buyers.

In the virtual marketplace, purchases of the owners' signals are trackedby the owners or sellers, within the remote server computer, and in thesignals marketplace, which automatically tracks the signals data throughits function of transferring signal information between buyer and sellerwithin active agreements, and monitoring feedback on signal performancethrough observation of events, behaviors, environment and states ofobjects and objectives. The marketplace uses this feedback to updatedirectories, indices, pricing, history, agreements, and correlations toan objective. Also preferably, the signals marketplace centralizedserver computer automatically tracks and manages signal and participantreputation for communication to other marketplace participants. Thesignals and their corresponding owners, as well as buyers, brokers,publishers, observers and other participants are registered andregistration information is stored in the centralized databaseassociated with the virtual marketplace remote server computer, and theregistration information is stored in a shared directory associated withthe centralized database.

The present invention also provides an embodiment including a method forcreating and using a virtual marketplace for valuing and selling signalsgenerated from distributed data sources that are controlled by amultiplicity of owners, the method steps including: providing at leastone signal from a first data source and at least one signal from asecond data source to a remote server computer for a signal marketplaceor exchange; wherein the signals originate from different distributeddata sources controlled by different owners and the signals are indexedand listed in a centralized database and each of the indexed signals islinked to corresponding relational databases; and, wherein a value foreach centralized indexed signal is automatically generated by the remoteserver computer associated with the seller where terms of use have beenagreed. The value of the signals is controlled by the seller and basedupon at least two factors associated with each value, the at least twofactors selected from the group consisting of: event, object state,change in state, behavior of an object, relationship to another object,relationship to a behavior, economic indicators, relevance to anobjective, near-real-timeliness, frequency, recency, predictiveaccuracy, fidelity, reputation of the signal, reputation of the seller,affinity to a target, usefulness to an objective, and combinationsthereof. Also, in this method embodiment, as with the systems of thepresent invention, the marketplace provides for participation andcompensation of other parties that observe object behavior, object stateor are otherwise capable of providing feedback signals corresponding toa state, behavior, activity, and/or an event. This observer feedbackinforms the agreements, economic value of the signals, objectpreferences, calculated correlation of signal information, environmentalprojections and other marketplace functions. The economic value of theobservation can be calculated by the marketplace, and these observationfeedback signals can be indexed and purchased within the marketplace.Advantageously, the listed index provides for automated matching withbuyer candidates having corresponding objectives for buying signals andsignals data, and wherein the objectives include consumer state, eventsand behavior(s). Additional method steps include: the step ofautomatically updating the listed index and/or creating new listings;receiving a defined use and an agreement to report on a result of use bya registered buyer with the server computer; releasing signal data to aregistered buyer based upon the agreement between the signal owner andthe registered buyer; monitoring performance of the at least one signalcompared with a corresponding objective; automatically determining arelevance to an objective for the at least one signal based oncomparison with consumer feedback and consumer behavior; and/or limitingsignal availability based upon a rules engine that automaticallyconsiders buyer agreement, identity, campaign type, signal requested,price, redemption signal type, purchase quantity, past performance ofsignal, past performance of campaign type, past performance of buyer;automatically correlating how the value of the information decays overtime and with respect to relevance to the objective; and combinationsthereof.

According to the present invention, the signal owner controls how the atleast one signal is created, generated and/or constructed and accordingto the usage stipulated by the buyer and seller. The virtual marketplaceor exchange between signal sellers and signal buyers, preferably the atleast one signal includes a signal type selected from the groupconsisting of: event signals, activity signals, behavior signals,performance signals, relational signals, location signals, loyaltysignals, purchase signals, social signals, and combinations thereof.

Methods of the present invention further include the step of generatinga value of signal relevance to the objective based upon signal feedback,object behavior, object state, and/or consumer reputation; and, moreparticularly, wherein the value of the at least one signal depends uponthe time of the at least one signal from an event occurrence, andwherein the value of the at least one signal decays over time.Significantly, a category of signals that represents real time or nearreal time activity, events, states and behavior have values that decayquickly with time. In this instance a signal that represents an object'sactivity 1 second ago has a greater value than the same signal that is 1hour old. The signals marketplace enables the transmission of these realtime signals within the rules and constraints of the participants,consumers, marketplace and regulatory authorities.

Preferably, the virtual marketplace or exchange server computer receivesfeedback from the buyers and observers regarding qualities of relevance,correlation, and/or strength of each of the at least one signal.Observers are entities that can attest to object state, behavior,activities or events. Observers may not be direct party in the buyer andseller agreements. It is an aspect of the current invention that thebuyer and the marketplace will provide for the participation of externalparties acting as observers. In preferred embodiments of the presentinvention, a signal quality and a signal reputation are automaticallygenerated by the virtual marketplace based upon an assessment of signalperformance compared with an objective and/or based on the feedbackreceived. By way of example and not limitation, observer attributionsmay be have different weight, value or trust to different participants.In competitive situations, some observers are economically incented toprovide erroneous data to a defined buyer. Thus it is an aspect of thepresent invention to provide for a reputation of all participants andsignals.

The present invention virtual data marketplace for signals is built onthe framework of coordinating signals or indicators within amultiplicity of corresponding signal owners or signal sellers, themethod steps performed by a signal owner include: constructing at leastone signal associated with a behavior of an object and/or an activityand/or an event associated with the object in a signal owner computerthat is constructed and configured for network-based communication witha remote server computer, wherein the at least one signal based upon atleast two factors associated with each value, the at least two factorsselected from the group consisting of: event, object state, change instate, behavior of an object, relationship to another object,relationship to a behavior, economic indicators, relevance to anobjective, near-real-timeliness, frequency, recency, predictiveaccuracy, fidelity, reputation of the signal, reputation of the seller,affinity to a target, usefulness to an objective, and combinationsthereof; registering the signal type within the marketplace; creatingrules for usage and disclosure, indexing the at least one signalremotely; listing the indexed signals in a remote database associatedwith the remote server computer; creating a remote correlation of localsignals to external signals and information; communicating the remotesignal index and remote correlation to the centralized data marketplace,wherein the centralized marketplace combines a multiplicity of remoteindices and correlations to assist in discovery and automated matchingwith buyer candidates; and updating the listing of the indexed signalsand signal correlations by the signal seller or signal owner; discoveryof signals for a use by a multiplicity of buyers, pricing of signals fora defined use, the creation of agreements for use, the regulatory andconsumer permission of use, the transmission and tracking during use,incorporation of observer feedback during and after use, calculation ofthe value created through the use, and for the clearing and settlementbased upon the terms of the agreement.

The at least one signal includes a signal type selected from the groupconsisting of: event signals, activity signals, behavior signals,relational signals, location signals, loyalty signals, purchase signals,performance signals, social signals, and combinations thereof. Signalsare generated or constructed from both structured and unstructured data.Significantly, each signal owner controls how the at least one signal iscreated, generated and/or constructed; in embodiments of the presentinvention, methods of the present invention provide steps whereinsignals or indicators are created by the signal owner transforming itsown data into the signals or indicators through steps of automaticallyorganizing structured data and unstructured data by a correlationengine. In constructing the at least one signal or indicator, preferablythe signal seller (or its system and seller correlation engine)automatically determines a relevance to an objective from historicalperformance and including external observations and feedback on objectstate, activity or behavior.

While the definition and construction of the signal is at the discretionof the Seller, generally signals conform to a common signal structurewhose elements are named and formatted to marketplace conventions forthe purpose of creating a common taxonomy for exchange of signalinformation. In the case of a signal exchange within a signalsmarketplace, but also for exchange outside of a marketplace, the signalstructure provides for secure and reliable transportation andtranslation of an information payload contained with a signal. Thesignal construct defines the source, the destination, the deliverychannel, the method for securing the data, the agreement under which thedata is exchanged, a transaction identifier, a transaction time,information necessary to confirm receipt, template which describe thesignal or message type, and the payload of the message. Sellers andbuyers use the signals construct to create, register, publish, discover,assess, sell, manage, and measure data exchange according to the systemsand methods of the present invention. Signal exchanges include bothbuyer-initiated and seller-initiated signals; some examples follow forillustration purposes, but are not intended to limit the claimedinvention thereto.

Buyer Initiated Behavior Signal (BIBS). Behavior signals are publishedby sellers which observe object behavior. For a given buyer initiatedbehavior signal, the buyer of a behavior signal initiates thetransaction through a request for a registered behavior signal fromseller for a given event, object or category of objects. The content ofthe seller's signal is based upon the seller's historical interactionwith one or more events, objects or activities that correspond to thebehavior of object(s). To obtain the Seller's signal, the buyer mustprovide a reference point for the seller to create the behavior signal.In this model it is the request of the buyer triggers the exchange ofdata. For a given reference point, the seller's signal describes abehavior such and such information as the recency and the frequency ofthe behavior. By way of example and not limitation, a behavior name isillustrated by “Travel-To [Variable]”. The buyer initiates the requestand seeds the reference point variable for the signal. Each buyer couldpay a different price depending on the value they derive from thesignal.

Buyer Initiated Event Signal (BIES). Event signals are published bysellers which observe events. For a given buyer initiated event signal,the buyer of an event signal initiates the transaction through a requestfor objects, or categories of objects from seller that have arelationship to a registered event. The content of the seller's signalis based upon an historical interaction with one or more events, objectsor activities that correspond to an event. To obtain the seller'ssignal, the buyer must provide a reference point for the seller tocreate the event signal. In this model it is the request of the buyertriggers the exchange of data. A signal request is initiated by thebuyer asking the seller if a given reference event has occurred. Thesignal response can contain information on the event, objects within theevent, recency, frequency, location, as well as specifics surroundingthe event. By way of example and not limitation, consider “moviepurchases in Cincinnati Ohio in last 5 minutes” as a signal request ofthis type, the seller would respond to this signal with an array ofobjects each with an recency and frequency, with each element of thearray priced depending on the value that the buyer derives from thesignal.

Seller Initiated Behavior Signal (SIBS). In this case the seller isinitiating (or publishing) that a behavior has occurred to one or moreregistered buyers. The content of the seller's signal is based upon acurrent or historical interaction with one or more events, objects oractivities which correspond to the behavior of an object. The signalscan be published to one or more buyers, and prospective buyers as theactivity occurs. Each buyer could pay a different price depending on thevalue they derive from the signal. By way of example and not limitation,consider “consumer [OBJECTID] is shopping in [Location]” as a signal.

Seller Initiated Event Signal (SIES). Seller is initiating (orpublishing) an event to one or more buyers. The content of the seller'ssignal is based upon a current or historical interaction with one ormore events, objects or activities which correspond to the behavior ofan object. From a software design perspective, this model is consistentwith software based publish/subscribe paradigm. Within commerce signalsbuyers “subscribe” to an event made known by the seller. Each buyercould pay a different price depending on the value they derive from thesignal. The seller initiates the signal, and can communicate specificsabout the event. By way of example and not limitation, consider“consumer [OBJECT ID] purchased movie ticket” as a signal which was sentto a multitude of buyers that have agreed to terms and are registered toreceive the information. In this case the seller may choose to price thesignal differently for each buyer based upon the value that the signalprovides toward the corresponding usage of any given buyer.

The signals may be directly derived, constructed, or generated fromsignal owner raw data and/or synthetic signals may be constructed fromat least one signal or a multiplicity of signals, i.e., one or moresignals are used to construct additional signals, so the syntheticsignals are not directly associated with the underlying raw data. Onceagain, signals or indicators according to the present invention aregenerated or constructed from both structured and unstructured data ofthe signal owner. Note that the method steps of the present inventionare made for a multiplicity of signals and corresponding signal owners,in particular in the case of distribution in the context of a virtualmarketplace or exchange for signals.

Preferably, after constructing signals, their distribution or sale tobuyers is controlled by the signal owner and rules governing sellersignals or owner signals that provide for limiting signal availabilitybased upon a rules engine that automatically considers buyer identity,campaign type, signal requested, price, redemption signal type, purchasequantity, past performance of signal, past performance of campaign type,past performance of buyer, and combinations thereof. The rules engineresides within a remote computer of the signal seller and iscommunicated through a distributed network, either directly and/orwithin a virtual marketplace having a centralized rules engine governingthe management of the exchange of signals for a multiplicity of signalsellers and signal buyers. By way of example and not limitation, a rulecould prohibit use of information: by a competitor, or buyers with apoor reputation, or for consumers that prohibit certain buyers and uses.

Signal value cannot be established conclusively independently of asignal buyer's objective and the actual performance of the data withinthe objective. Additionally the value of any of the signals depends uponsignal relevance to the objective based upon a multiplicity of factors,quality of the seller's data, time from last observation and/orinteraction, effectiveness of consumer interaction, depth ofinteraction, consumer feedback, buyer behavior, and/or consumerreputation. The signal seller correlation engines provide options forautomatically correlating how the signals or indicators relate to dataheld within the signal seller to data external to the signal seller. Thepresent invention also provides an embodiment including a method foradjusting the correlation of data with time and with respect torelevance to the objective(s) of buyers. Significantly, regardless ofthe objectives, generally the value of the signal(s) depends upon thetime of the signal construction from an event occurrence, wherein thevalue of the signal decays over time. Also, the present inventionprovides for the adjustment of index, correlation, discovery, matching,pricing and calculation economic value of registered signals and theirassociated decay over time. By way of example and not limitation,consider a signal “Consumer [ID] Purchased Movie Ticket at TIME”. Thissignal has relevance to a buyer's objective which is dependent on timesince the observation. In other words a signal has a higher relevance ifit is one second old, and a lesser relevance as time progresses. Theeconomic value of a signal is in proportion to its relevance, hence thevalue of the signal is also higher if the signal is one second old, anda lesser value as time progresses.

Feedback is a form of signal sourced from observers of objects.Observers typically have no need to maintain historical information, butrather report on current object state or activity. By way of example andnot limitation, consider a Wi-Fi hotspot at LOCATION that has a currentrequest for access from COMPUTER_ID. If the objective of a signal buyerwas for COMPUTER_ID presence at LOCATION, then this observation isrelevant to the buyer. Furthermore, the process of receiving feedbackfrom observers, pertaining to object state, activity, performance andbehavior, provides a mechanism to assess and adjust performance ofmarketplace participants, marketplace systems, signals and campaignsoperating within a federated data marketplace. And so evolving the atleast on signal based upon the feedback received is an additional stepin methods of the present invention. Additionally, a signal quality anda signal reputation is automatically generated (by the correlationengine of the signal seller and/or by the signal marketplace or signalexchange) based upon an assessment of signal feedback. The signalfeedback may provide information useful for evaluating performance ofthe signal compared with the buyer's objectives; the virtual marketplacewill determine what feedback is relevant toward any objective. By way ofexample, a correlation engine is described within U.S. Pat. No.5,504,839 for “Processor and processing element for use in a neuralnetwork” by inventor Mobus, filed Aug. 29, 1994, which is incorporatedherein by reference in its entirety.

The present invention provides methods for creating signals orindicators by corresponding signal owners, the method steps performed bya signal owner includes: constructing at least one signal associatedwith a behavior of an object and/or an activity and/or an eventassociated with the object in a signal owner computer that isconstructed and configured for network-based communication with a remoteserver computer, wherein the value of the signals is controlled by theseller and based upon at least two factors associated with each value,the at least two factors selected from the group consisting of: event,object state, change in state, behavior of an object, relationship toanother object, relationship to a behavior, economic indicators,relevance to an objective, near-real-timeliness, frequency, recency,predictive accuracy, fidelity, reputation of the signal, reputation ofthe seller, affinity to a target, usefulness to an objective, andcombinations thereof; generating a first value for each of the at leastone signal; and tracking usage of the at least one signal. Also, the atleast one signal provides a feedback corresponding to the behavior,activity, and/or the event. Additional steps include indexing the atleast one signal; listing the indexed signals in a remote databaseassociated with the remote server computer, communicating the remoteindex to the centralized data marketplace signal index, wherein thecentralized signal index listing provides for automated discovery andmatching with buyer candidates having corresponding objectives forbuying signals and signals data, wherein the objectives include consumerbehavior(s), events, object states, object performance; and updating thelisting of the remote and centralized indices by the signal seller orsignal owner.

The content of the seller's signal is based upon the seller'sinteraction with one or more events, objects or activities. Signals aregenerated or constructed from both structured and unstructured data,which contain records of interaction. Significantly, each signal ownercontrols how the at least one signal is created, generated and/orconstructed; in embodiments of the present invention, methods of thepresent invention provide steps wherein signals or indicators arecreated by the signal owner transforming its own data into the signalsor indicators through steps of automatically organizing structured data,unstructured data and external data 360-80 based upon historicalpatterns, external usage, external feedback, external objectobservations, locally maintained correlation engines, centrally managedcorrelation engines, signal response management, and object estimators.While the definition and construction of the signal is at the discretionof the Seller, generally signals conform to a common signal structurewhose elements are named and formatted to marketplace conventions forthe purpose of creating a common taxonomy for publishing, discover andexchange of signal information. By way of example and not limitation,the taxonomy of the at least one signal includes a signal type selectedfrom the group consisting of: state signals, event signals, activitysignals, behavior signals, relational signals, location signals, loyaltysignals, purchase signals, social signals, and combinations thereof.

The present invention provides for the signal owner selectively sharingsignals information with signal buyers in a virtual marketplace orexchange, wherein the signals information includes a unique identifierassociating each signal transmitted by an owner and/or signal seller forexchange with a signal buyer and/or signal data marketplace andagreement within which the data exchange was governed. Preferably, theinformation shared provides privacy protection for the signal owner andthe information contained within the signal. Furthermore, each signalincludes and defines the source, the destination, the delivery channel,the method for securing the data, the agreement under which the data isexchanged, a transaction identifier, a transaction time, informationnecessary to confirm receipt, template which describes the message type,and the payload of the message. In any case, the signals or indicatorsconstructed by the signal seller (signal owner) provide the seller witha mechanism to protect the underlying data from which the signals orindicators are derived. Also, in preferred embodiments, additionalprivacy protection may be provided by at least one of: screening,anonymizing, and/or using hashed values. For example with hashed values,methods provide for matching credit card objects with MD5 hash of acredit card number allowing signal sellers to identify behavior on thematch of hash values versus the match of actual credit card numbers;importantly the MD5 hash cannot be easily reversed (except by NSA). Bothentities or parties to the transaction are doing consistent hash, butneither one disclose a number. The same methods and systems are usedwith email hash; it confirms the match, but only discloses the encryptedinformation.

Systems and methods of the present invention provide for releasingsignal data to a registered buyer based upon an agreement between thesignal owner and the registered buyer. Before an agreement is generated,the signal seller retains control of the signal data until afterreceiving a defined use by a registered buyer, which provides one of thekey terms for the agreement. Preferably, the agreement also providesrequirements for feedback and/or measurement of objective, such as byway of example and not limitation, to report on a result of use by aregistered buyer. Also, the release of the signal data is can be eitherbased upon an observance by the seller, external observers or by arequest of the buyer. In another embodiment, the release of signal datais based upon a trigger. Preferably, the release of signal data orsignals to registered buyer(s) is automatic based upon detection of thetrigger.

The systems and methods of the present invention also provide forautomatically confirming receipt of the at least one signal by adestination or signal buyer(s); this step is achieved by automatedmessaging generated from the buyer computer and communicatedautomatically through the network to the seller computer directly and/orto the signal marketplace server computer for tracking the distributionof all signals and associated object identifiers based upon uniquesignal identifiers and the agreements between signal sellers and signalbuyers for predetermined uses of the signals.

As set forth in the foregoing, the construction of signals is providedfor use between signal sellers and signal buyers via the virtualmarketplace through a network for communication between theirdistributed computers and a remote server computer associated with thevirtual marketplace for signals data. The present invention furtherprovides methods and systems for establishing and using a virtualmarketplace for value-based exchange of those constructed signals,wherein the value of the signals is determined in the context of willingsignal buyers and signal sellers for the signals. The signals of thepresent invention are derived from data sources that are owned by amultiplicity of entities and/or individuals, and the signals areabstracted from distributed information and data associated with themultiplicity of entities and/or individuals to protect the underlyinginformation and data. Each entity or individual that sells signals datain the virtual marketplace first converts or transforms their unique rawdata (or underlying data) into a “signal” or signals, which areindicators associated with object behavior as observed by theirrespective owners. Importantly, each distributed data source which is amember of the marketplace may make remote indices and correlationsavailable to the virtual marketplace for the purpose of aiding buyerdiscovery, matching, clearing and settlement, reputation, identifyingdata leakage, and performance.

The value of any signal cannot be determined separate from one or morebuyers, their objectives, and the corresponding use of the signalstoward those objectives. Signal sellers create and define rules in whichto sell signals. Rules can be based upon requestor, usage, object,behavior, performance, reputation or any other attribute available inthe market. By way of example and not limitation, Barclays Bank willonly allow consumer travel signals to be used by approved vendors andwith explicit consumer permission for hotel reservation use. Buyers havethe opportunity to request access to signals within the rules of themarketplace seller, consumer and other regulatory authority. Sellers maychoose to accept requests within the terms of an agreement, which ismaintained in the marketplace or directly between the two parties. Inthe case of a signals marketplace or exchange for the signals, themarketplace centralized server computer retains the information on theagreement, signal requests, signal exchanges, feedback, historical data,buyer, seller, seller reputation, signal reputation, price,effectiveness, rules, constraints, and combinations thereof.

According to the present invention, signal creators (signal sellers) orsignal owners retain control of their respective data and the signalsconstructed therefrom, until a registered buyer defines use of thesignals, agrees to report on result (by way of example and notlimitation, reports on effectiveness for a given use) and other terms,and an agreement is created between buyer and seller. This method forcreating and using signals or indicators establishes control, value, andprice for those signals between the signal seller and signal buyer(s),and/or the signal sellers and signal buyers who are the participants ina virtual marketplace or signals exchange. The signal supplier or signalseller (or signal owner) controls how each signal is constructed orgenerated; the underlying data or information owned by the signal sellermay be reconstructed or regenerated into more than one signal for use bythird parties for different purposes. Marketplace rules governconstruction, transmission and tracking of signal information and theassociated object throughout their defined use; this allows signals tobe correlated to object behavior. Tying signal performance to objectbehavior and object events subsequently provides for measurement ofvalue and subsequent market based pricing of signals within the virtualmarketplace. Object behavior may take the form of feedback from parties,which are external to any given agreement between buyer and seller. Thisobject behavior obtained from external third party observers inform andcorrect the correlation of signals to objects and behavior within themarketplace. Importantly this correlation is external to informationavailable to either buyer or seller independently. Third party observersthus participate in the marketplace to provide feedback on objects,which may be covered within a multitude of agreements between amultitude of sellers and buyers. Thus the present invention, providesfor the interaction of third party observers both directly to the signalsellers and across the entire marketplace participants. The signalconstruct defines the source, the destination, the delivery channel, themethod for securing the data, the agreement under which the data isexchanged, a transaction identifier, a transaction time, informationnecessary to confirm receipt, template which describes the message type,and the payload of the message. The construction of a signal by a signalseller will have varying degrees of relevance to any given signal buyerand that buyer's objective, thus the value of the information and data,as well as the signals generated therefrom, will vary with itscorrelation and fidelity. This provides a natural feedback loop in thevirtual marketplace or exchange. Signals that have poor fidelity or poorcorrelation with an objective will have poor performance, and thus acorrespondingly poor price.

Signal sellers have minimal insight into prospective buyers, and thevalue of their signals in any given context. Visibility is furtherlimited into competing data. For example, if an advertiser intends tosell hotels to frequent travelers of a predetermined destination, theyhave the choice of seeking information from flight records, geolocation, rental car records, credit card issuers, etc., andcombinations thereof. Buyers of information also have interests tooptimize price for a given performance or quality of correlation. If asignal buyer could obtain geographic location information for $0.05 witha 70% correlation, it may well be a preferred purchase to flightrecords, which cost $5.00 and have a 100% correlation. Within a signalsadvertising application embodiment, the signal marketplace providesservices to the buyer for directing and optimizing the purchase ofsignals for targeted advertising, including campaigns across multipleprospective sources, to determine which signals (if any) have relevanceto a given advertising campaign, and providing both buyers and sellerswith a liquid market in which to exchange, compare, and protectinformation while providing and purchasing use of the signals within themarketplace or exchange. Significantly, a category of signals thatrepresents real time or near real time activity, events, states andbehavior have values that decay quickly with time. In this instance asignal that represents an object's activity one second ago has a greatervalue than the same signal that is one hour old. The signals marketplaceenables the transmission of these real time signals within the rules andconstraints of the participants, consumers, marketplace and regulatoryauthorities.

Furthermore, the marketplace for signals includes a signals index fordiscovery, tracking and comparing signals and their historical value,reputation and performance. Categories or groups of signals by type,behavior, seller, and usage are also provided. By way of example and notlimitation, signals include an expression of frequency and relevancetoward an input variable (e.g., affinity to a city, type of food,automobiles, sports, etc.). Also, signal responses are tracked withunique object identifiers which the seller uses internally to uniquelyidentify a given object. By way of example and not limitation, objectidentifiers include encrypted forms of e-mail address, phone number,location, loyalty card number, etc. Correlation between signals andtheir performance is represented by the signal pricing and trading(buying/selling) within the virtual marketplace, third party observers,and/or directly between signal sellers and signal buyers. Additionally,initial rating for expected correlation between signals and theirperformance is provided by the seller. A new signal will have nohistorical performance and thus buyers will likely minimize theirpurchase until the performance can be validated.

In the embodiment having a signals marketplace or exchange, thecentralized server computer associated with the signals marketplacemaintains a master directory of signals and associated correlations inorder to facilitate buyer discovery, matching, clearing and settlement,reputation, identifying data leakage, and performance. Historicalperformance of a signal, signal seller and third party observerinformation may be used to update the correlation of signals.Additionally, initial rating for expected correlation of signals toobjects, activities, events and objectives is provided by the seller. Anew signal will have no historical performance and thus buyers maylikely minimize their purchase or until the performance can bevalidated.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, the flow diagram indicates signal constructionor generation method steps. As illustrated in the FIG. 1, the systemprovides data mining 364 on the unstructured data and data mapping 366on the structured data. Signals are based on structured 380 andunstructured 370 data; a data correlation engine 360 provides datamining 364 for unstructured data, and data mapping 366 for structureddata. The content of the seller's signal is based upon an historicalinteraction with one or more events, objects or activities thatcorrespond to the behavior of an object. To obtain the seller's signal,the buyer must provide a reference point for the seller to create thebehavior data. For example, a signal of AFFINITY_TO_CITY may requireinput of ID, and CITY_NAME. A plane, a phone, a consumer, a computercould all have an affinity to a city. Similarly a phone company, anairline, a rental car company, a bank, a search engine, a restaurant, orsimilar entity could all have a set of data that would inform theaffinity toward a city. The signal seller has multiple options whenconstructing a signal of “AFFINITY_TO_CITY” sellers could use consumerbilling records, flight records, payment records, location records, insourcing data for to respond to this request. In order to protectconsumer information, the signal seller may use any source ofinformation in constructing a response and a signal response is alwaysnormalized to be between 0 and 1. For example an airline may use flightinformation to determine that a consumer has traveled to NYC five timesin the last year and has set AFFINITY_TO_CITY for New York equal to 0.5.The value of this information is completely dependent on its accuracy,recency, competing information sources, price and intended use. Themarketplace 250 informs the rules and pricing engine 320 of relevantinformation to set price.

Signal sellers have control over how they sell their signals data withinthe rules engine 320. These rules can be constructed based on anymarketplace attribute. For example if United Airlines bought signalsdata within the signal marketplace, or directly from signals seller(s),and receives a response from a signals data seller that is a competingairline for a particular traveler, United Airlines could surmise thethis particular traveler uses the competing airline for travel to thatcity and could thus directly market to the that consumer. In oneembodiment of the present invention, the signals data seller rulesengine 320 is within the control and ownership of the each signal sellerand shared with the marketplace so that rules enforcement occur at boththe marketplace and remotely with the seller; Significantly, thisfederated model provides for control of the data by the owner, allowingthe marketplace to establish linkage to a multiplicity of federated dataowners, with each data owner in control of rules and parameters for therelease of information to approved buyers; allowing the centralizedmarket to manage rules during the exchange and provide for clearing andsettlement of federated data (signals) for multiple participants and/ormultiple federated data sources which act in concert toward a commonobjectives, with each participant paid based upon value delivered,observed externally or price agreed to. Additionally rules defined bythe seller, and transferred to the marketplace may be used to excludebuyers from discovering or requesting purchase of signals which arerelevant to their objectives, such as in the case of a competitive useof information.

By way of example and not limitation, the signal marketplace rulesinclude registration of participants, construction of signals,destruction and safeguarding of data, purchase of signals, use ofsignals, tracking of signal performance, clearing and settlement,marketplace history, tracking reputation of signals and allparticipants, involvement of non participants, dispute process,participant responsibilities, and other significant areas. Given thatthe price of signals is unknown to any given buyer, the prospectivebuyer must first issue a request for quote to a signal seller. Therequest for quote contains information necessary for the seller todetermine price and establish bid-response communication protocol.Sellers respond with a request for quote (RFQ) response or no response.If there is an RFQ response it can include acceptance or alternateterms. Upon receiving the RFQ response the buyer may propose alternateterms until an acceptance is issued by the seller via the network-basedcommunications between distributed computing devices. Upon receiving theaccepted RFQ message from the seller, the buyer issues a bindingpurchase confirmation after which the seller confirms receipt andrespond with the delivery of the signal(s) in the timeframe specified.The marketplace subsequently registers this agreement with a contractmanagement system. Signals can be transmitted within the terms definedwithin the registered contract or purchase confirmation. By way ofexample and not limitation, signal pricing can consist of both fixedprice and price based upon an objective measured within the marketplace.The marketplace embodying the invention provides an anonymous tradingsystem having a communicating network for transmitting electronicmessages between distributed computers of signal sellers and signalbuyers. A plurality of order input devices such as buyer and sellerterminals are connected to the communication network. Each signal orderdevice may generate price quotation messages, which include bid and/oroffer prices and may communicate estimated price and analyticsinformation to a buyer. A plurality of seller rules and pricing enginesare connected to the network, to match bids and offers the marketplaceexecute deals and records transactions where matches are made. At leastone of the matching engines has an associated market publisher 400(illustrated in FIG. 2), which with the signal will be distributed andtracked.

Trackable behaviors are defined within the marketplace and may includeby way of example and not limitation: purchase with one time use code,purchase with credit card, location, registration, viewing of a website, opening of email, phone call or viewing of a television show orcommercial. Marketplace rules require participants to record definedbehaviors and object identifiers, which are correlated to a signal,object, event or behavior.

Within the signals marketplace or virtual marketplace or exchange,signals from multiple sources can be combined to identify objects.Similarly, object correlation to other objects, object correlation tobehaviors, object correlation to events, object correlation to states,are tracked so that the marketplace requests will match correspondingdata. By way of example and not limitation, objects such as: a person, acar, and a computer can all be correlated. Each of these objects canalso have behaviors that can be correlated using a correlation engine,which may be provided in the centralized server computer or distributedamong computers in communication over a network.

By way of example and not limitation if the signal AFFINITY_TO_CITY (NewYork) was combined with AFFINITY_TO_THEATER the target audience oflikely Broadway ticket purchasers could be developed. A statisticalengine within the marketplace cross correlates signal performance forany given objective. The statistical engine assesses the performance ofsignals both in isolated and combined usage, thus retaining the abilityto assess value for a single signal within the marketplace and itsparticipants. In addition to combining signals, the marketplacestatistical engine also includes random samples of other signals. Thus,signal sellers are required to support analytics driven requests fortheir signals data to assess the cross correlation of signals. Randomsampling is also used to assess the performance the unique performanceof specific signal types, and identify and or update correlations,prediction, estimations and interdependencies of signals, object, eventsand behaviors. In this way the random samples allow the marketplace toupdate correlations and indices to may make automated suggestions ofalternate data sources which may improve price-performance of a givenobjective. When two or more signals are used toward an objective it isstatistically necessary to vary the use of signals in order to properlycalculate their performance, covariance and other correlations. Themarketplace varies use of signals by altering their content, weighting,and presence or adding other signal information. By way of example andnot limitation, an Italian restaurant wishes to advertise after theshowing of a movie at a movie theater. The movie theater has a signalLEAVING MOVIE THEATER for a given object, or consumer. The campaignmanager that manages the advertising campaign for an Italian restaurantfinds the movie theater signal of use, but must gain additionalinformation to determine which consumers leaving the movie theaterprefer Italian food. The campaign manager requests AFFINITY to ITALIANFOOD for a given object or consumer from the consumer's bank and thesame signal from an Italian Food magazine. By varying the AFFINITY toITALIAN FOOD use signals from the bank and the magazine, and includingrandom signals, the statistical performance, correlation, and covarianceof the bank signals, the magazine signals, and other prospective signalscan be easily calculated within the marketplace analytics.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, the schematic diagram illustrates componentswithin a signal marketplace and/or exchange of signals between signalsellers and signal buyers, and methods or processes associated withtheir interaction.

Federated Data Centralized Intelligence. With any given sellercorrelations can be held remotely with object behavior and stateestimated from both internal and external data. Significantly, thisremote data correlation is shared with the centralized marketplace toassist with buyer discovery and object feedback. This approach allowseach signal seller to control their data within their own environment,and perform analysis locally to provide a standardized result set todata buyers. This standardized result set provides security to the ownerof the data as to not allow unapproved usage and further dissemination.The result set and marketplace allow for the tracking of the benefitthat this indicator provided to a given objective (example: marketingcampaign). It also allows the seller to control the price of theresponse based upon the benefit to which it provides, understanding thatit will provide different benefits to different buyers and differentusages.

The computer-implemented method for indexing distributed data in adistributed data network in which file metadata and signal types relatedto unique keys are temporarily centralized within a marketplace. Themethod of invention calls for assigning and using a unique key toidentify signals, which correlates to the key and returns it to themarketplace where it can be combined with other data sources. Akey-value store built up in rows for the marketplace metadata, andupdated by each node through response and direct participant edits. Eachof the rows has a composite row key and a row value pair, also referredto herein as key-value pair.

Also, as illustrated in the figures, in particular in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2,a method of construction of signals/indicators directly between signalsellers and signal buyers and/or within a data marketplace to express:recency, frequency, and affinity of a given input value is illustrated(generally referenced 2000 in FIG. 2), including the following:

Pricing signals data (signals) within a market of buyers and sellersbased upon performance of indicators toward an objective.

A self-organizing network for exchange of signal information betweensignal sellers and signal buyers.

A method of using data indicators from one or more sources each sourcepriced separately within a data marketplace 200 to target consumers incampaigns operating through one or more advertising publishers 400.(Advertiser 100, Campaign Manager 150, Signal Data Marketplace 200,Signal Management 250, Publisher (Distributor) 400), in particular forcampaign management, which may further include consumer 500 permissionsincluding Consumer Rules 550 and Consumer Pricing 570, and otherSeller-based components 300, including Seller Rules and Pricing 320,Signal or Indicator Construction 340, Seller Data Correlation Engines360-40, External Data Access 360-80, Seller Unstructured Data 370, andSeller Structured Data 380).

The present invention systems and methods may further include thefollowing: Performance based advertising within a signal datamarketplace 200 with publishing targeted and traceable advertising basedupon information sourced from the signals marketplace or exchange.Examples of traceable advertising include one time use codes, coupons,discounts, loyalty, digitally stored incentives, and combinationsthereof 450.

Registration of signal providers (data sellers) in a shared directory200-300.

Registration of signal types offered by signals providers in a shareddirectory 300, 320, 340, 360.

Registration and participation of advertisers (signal buyers) in asignals marketplace or exchange 100, 150, 200.

Registration and participation of content distributors in a signalsmarketplace or exchange 400, 200.

Registration and participation of consumers in a signals marketplace orexchange 500-550, 200.

Method of governing exchange of consumer information within a datamarketplace that is dependent on consumer permission and consumerdefined fees 550-200.

Rules governing the exchange of signals in a marketplace 200.

Creation of advertising campaigns using distributed signals, i.e.,wherein the signals are provided from different sources.

Method of automated signal selection within a data marketplace, basedupon signal price performance and relevance.

The Method of communicating signal performance and pricing informationwithin a marketplace (marketplace analytics 250).

The method of purchasing signals via dynamic pricing in a bid/responsemarketplace 220.

Method of tracking the performance of federated indicators/signalswithin a data marketplace, based upon behavior (e.g. web site visit),location, card transaction information, redemption codes, loyalty cards.

Method of pricing indicators within a data marketplace based uponbehavior 600 web site visit, social sharing, location, card transactioninformation 650, redemption codes, and loyalty cards, as illustrated inFIG. 2.

Method of settling payment between buyer and seller 700, 320, 270, 150,100 based upon redemption, coupon, one time code, payment, location,registration or other purchase information to confirm consumer behaviorwithin a distributed data marketplace.

Identification of consumer marketing channel preference through signalavailability, point of sale purchase information and other redemptioninformation.

Use of consumer location information to inform effectiveness ofadvertising within a signals marketplace.

Use of encrypted credit card to confirm purchase within an advertisingcampaign.

Use of encrypted consumer ID within retailer purchase history to confirmpurchase within an advertising campaign.

Technical interaction and message exchange between signal buyers andsellers.

Process of exchanging requested purchase of data from a data providerwithin a data marketplace.

Statistical method for optimizing signal selection for advertisingcampaigns operating with a signals marketplace or exchange.

Statistical method for optimizing advertising distribution channel basedupon signal information.

Method of defining campaign types supported by signal marketplace.Campaigns can begin with a target or campaigns can be managed bydistributor in a bid for consumer access by competing campaigns.

Protection of consumer information in a shared signals, and furtherincluding steps for protecting consumer anonymity in the exchange ofsignal information.

Clearing and settlement of signal exchange between participants in amarketplace based upon signal purchase agreements and signal performanceinformation.

Method restraining signal exchange through rules based upon local lawsof each transaction participant.

Method of selling indicators through marketplace agreements with pricebased upon advertising performance.

Method of Sharing revenue for consumer purchases with signal providersbased upon measured consumer behavior 600.

Method of Settlement of financial obligations in a data marketplacewhich may include consumer behavior, consumer payment, seller flat fees,seller performance fees, and consumer revenue sharing 270.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a signal data correlation engine 360 isillustrated including the components of a signal correlation interfacelayer 360-140, a signal data access layer 360-30 and a data processor360-10; wherein the signal correlation interface layer 360-140 furtherincludes: a commission engine 360-40, an object behavior estimator360-50, an object state estimator 360-60, a signal response management360-70 having external data access 360-80. The signal data access layerfurther including an object state processor 360-20, an object behaviorprocessor 360-23, an event manager 360-26, and signal history 360-26.The external data access is further related to external signal feedback360-110, a marketplace data connector 360-120, an other external dataconnector 360-130, an external object state 360-100, and an externalobject behavior 360-90. The signal construction 340 from unstructureddata 370 and structured data 380 also relates to the signal/seller datacorrelation engine 360 and seller rules and pricing 320. Signalanalytics 250 is related to the data correlation engine 360 as well asbehavior tracking 600 of behavior (including by observer) 650 and in thecase of advertising, redemption management 700.

Referring now to FIG. 4, the signal data marketplace 200 is illustrated,providing components and relationships for participants, services,channel management, registration management, and consumer interface. Forthe participants, general examples are illustrated for an advertiserand/or agency 200-10, a publisher 200-20, an observer 200-30, a retailerand/or redemption agent 200-40, and a broker 200-45. For the automatedservices provided by the remote/centralized server computer for thevirtual signal marketplace or exchange, examples are illustrated fororder matching 200-50, pricing 200-60, contract management 200-70,clearing and settlement 200-80, reputation 200-90, dispute management200-100, market analytics 200-110, event subscription 200-120, andindexing and discovery 200-125. For channel management provided by thevirtual signal data marketplace 200, a publisher 200-130, behaviortracking 200-140, publisher rules 200-150, and targeting rules 200-160are provided for automated steps within the signals marketplace orexchange. Functions of redemption management further include payment200-170, behavior tracking 200-180, retailer 200-190, and pricing200-200. Functions of consumer interface provided by the virtual signalmarketplace include consumer rules 200-210, channel preferences 200-220,behavior 200-230, opt in/opt out 200-240, pricing 200-250, and events200-270.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the inventionillustrating components and functions relating to signals management,generally referenced 250. The components include: Signal Directory250-200; Consumer Directory 250-210; Publisher Directory 250-220;Transformation 250-230; Event Management 250-240; Signal RequestManagement 250-10; Regulatory Reporting 250-12; Security 250-14; RulesEnforcement 250-16; Signal Delivery 250-20; Signal Interface Layer250-21; and a Signal Management Correlation Engine further including250-170; Correlation Engines 250-70; Signal Discovery 250-75; ObjectBehavior Estimator 250-80; Object State Estimator 250-90; SignalResponse Management 250-100; External Data Access 250-130; ExternalObject State 250-120; External Object Behavior 250-110; Other ExternalData Connector 250-160; Participant Data Connector; 250-150; ExternalSignal Feedback 250-140; and Data Storage 250-170.

The object behavior estimator uses one or more statistical engines topredict behavior of an object to external signals (which representevents or stimuli). Objects such as people have a current state (intransit, having a baby, sitting at home) and historical behaviorpatterns that are both dynamic and complex. For example, historicallywhen a person (Joe) travels to Chicago he has historically flown byunited airlines, stays at a Marriott, and eats at a steak chainrestaurant for dinner. This information is held by many observers suchas airlines, credit card companies, hotel chains, mobile phonecompanies, etc. Thus the object Joe has behaviors that are correlated totravel to Chicago.

Observers which sell their observations in the data marketplace aresignal sellers. There are two primary flows by which signal sellers (orsignal owners) interact with a signal suyer: Buyer Initiated Request forSignal, and Seller Initiated Signal.

A Buyer Initiated Signal typically requests predict behavior of anobject from historical observation information. For example the signalrequest of affinity to City, with the object context of the city ofChicago for object Joe, could be sent to an Airline Observer. In thisexample, the airline observer would correlate their historical traveldata on passenger travel to Chicago for object Joe and returninformation regarding the recency and frequency of Joe's travel toChicago. An Object Behavior Estimator could further predict the futuretravel based not only on an Airline observer's historical data, buttheir data correlated to external data such as a business conference, oranother objects actions and behaviors (example Joe always travels withSusan to Chicago). Within the distributed (or federated) signalsmarketplace, each observer retains the correlation to external datasignals, not based upon the data itself. For example the correlationengines for the airline above would hold both internal correlation ofJoe's travel preferences toward an external signal request, and thecorrelation of airline data to other external objects and behaviors(Susan's travel and conference events). The airline would not know theidentity of the object Susan, but only that there is a strongcorrelation to an external object behavior (Susan is traveling toChicago). Neither would the airline know that the external event was aspecific conference. To summarize, the statistical machines within thedata correlation engines and the estimators provide correlation ofinternal data to external objects and behaviors. These correlationsallow for prediction of current state and behavior to external stimuli,with external information protected by the signals construct.

In a Seller Initiated Signal, the observation signal has buyers thathave registered for the observation, without historical context. In thismodel it is the buyer that has correlated an external signal (from theseller) toward an objective. An example of a Seller Initiated Signal isan Airline with a signal Airline-Ticket-Purchase by Object at Time. Inthis example, the Seller Initiated Signal is an Event, which one or morebuyers have chosen to register for within the Signals Marketplace, andthe Seller has agreed to terms, which are contained within theMarketplace Contract Management System. For example, when Joe purchasesan airline ticket, the Airline (acting as Signal Seller) informsapproved signal buyers Marriott and Hilton that Joe will be travellingto Chicago. Event signals are a primary real time mechanism for sellingand transferring observations. The signals marketplace provides for thedissemination of approved real time data within the signals metaphor toprotect the contents of the information (or underlying data), its usageand performance, and realize value of the information based upon timedecay. The signal Purchased-Airline-Ticket has a higher value within 1second of the event, than at 10 minutes, 10 hours, or 10 days. Themarketplace provides for price prediction based upon the time decay, andfor measurement of performance of the event signal during its use. Forexample, if the hotel chain Hilton was able to use the signalPurchased-Airline-Ticket to secure a reservation by Joe, where Joe hadpreviously stayed at Marriott, Hilton received a known value in theincremental sale of that Chicago room. If the SignalPurchased-Airline-Ticket was the only signal used in an advertisingcampaign (or “campaign”) to Joe, than the performance of the signaltoward the objective is known. If Purchased-Airline-Ticket was used inconjunction with other information the marketplace will calculate theproportional effectiveness of the Airline signal in the context of othersignals used.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram is a schematic diagram illustratingcampaign management for signals in advertising. Campaign management,generally referenced 150, further includes the components and functionsof an advertising campaign and its management: campaign administration150-110; campaign rules 150-20; targeting 150-30; campaign history150-40; campaign template 150-50; content management 150-60; andcampaign database 150-70. Embodiments of the present invention for usingsignals in advertising and advertising campaigns further include:statistical methods for optimizing signal selection for advertisingcampaigns operating with a signals marketplace or exchange; statisticalmethods for optimizing advertising distribution channel based uponsignal information; and/or methods of defining campaign types supportedby the signal marketplace, wherein advertising campaigns can begin witha target, or advertising campaigns can be managed by distributor in abid for consumer access by competing advertising campaigns.

In one embodiment of the present invention, a method is provided forusing signals in advertisement that includes the steps of: providing atleast one signal for use in advertising, wherein the signal(s) originatefrom and are controlled by corresponding signal owners; providing andstoring a signal index in a centralized database wherein the signalindex is usable by prospective buyers to identify signals that may berelevant toward a given objective in at least one advertising campaign;transmitting the at least one signal to at least one signal buyer forthe predetermined signal usage in the advertising campaign(s) whereinthe predetermined signal usage includes the at least one advertisingcampaign.

Additional steps may further include: optimizing the signal selection bythe buyer(s) of the at least one signal for the predetermined signalusage in the advertising campaign(s) based upon the objectives of thebuyer(s), wherein the optimizing step includes consideration ofoptimizing factors selected from the group consisting of: a signalprice, signal correlation, a signal reputation, a signal performance, asignal owner reputation, and combinations thereof, wherein the signalbuyer determines the optimization factors for the at least one signalbased upon the at least one advertising campaign, and wherein theoptimizing step includes factors of: predictive accuracy, fidelity,relevance to an objective, near-real-timeliness, frequency, recency,relationship of the source of the signal, reputation of the signal,reputation of the seller, affinity to a target, and/or usefulness to anobjective associated with the at least one advertising campaign; thesignal buyer(s) creating the advertising campaign using the at least onesignal; tracking the performance of the at least one signal in theadvertising campaign(s), wherein tracking occurs through feedbackobtained by observers, which may include publishers, retailers,consumers, payment companies, and/or other third parties; automaticallycorrelating the effectiveness of the advertising campaign using the atleast one signal, wherein the correlating step includes an objectcorrelation to other objects and/or object behaviors to other objectsand/or a signal correlation to other signals; of providing feedback onthe signal usage in the advertising campaign; automatically matching theat least one signals with advertising campaigns for signal buyers, basedupon the signal index; providing the signal index for use in signaldiscovery and selection for advertising campaigns operating within avirtual marketplace for signals; providing a redemption signalassociated with at least one advertising campaign; optimizing signalselection for use in advertising campaigns and advertising distributionchannels based upon signal information provided by the correspondingsignal owner(s); receiving buyer goals for advertising campaigns usingthe signal(s); estimating demand for products and/or services based uponthe signal(s); automatically estimating a market size and/or a markettype based upon the at least one signal; automatically generating amarket size and a consumer profile based upon the at least one signaland its use in the advertising campaign; linking the indexed signals torelational databases associated with marketing and/or advertising;updating the signal index; and/or determining which observers have datarelating to any specific object associated with the signals.

In another embodiment, the present invention methods using signals inadvertising, and more particularly, methods for creating and using avirtual marketplace for valuing and selling signals generated fromdistributed data sources that are controlled by a multiplicity of ownersfor use in advertising campaigns, include the following method steps:providing at least one signal from a first data source and at least onesignal from a second data source to a remote server computer for asignal marketplace or exchange; generating an index and a listing in acentralized database; wherein the signals originate from differentdistributed data sources controlled by different owners and the signalsare indexed and listed in a centralized database and each of the indexedsignals is linked to corresponding relational databases; and using thesignal index for automated signal discovery and selection foradvertising campaigns operating within a virtual marketplace forsignals.

Additional method steps in embodiments of the present invention furtherinclude: optimizing signal selection for use in advertising campaignsand advertising distribution channels based upon signal informationprovided by the corresponding signal owner(s); monitoring performance ofthe at least one signal compared with a corresponding objectiveassociated with advertising campaigns; automatically determining arelevance to an objective associated with the at least one advertisingcampaign for the at least one signal based on comparison with consumerfeedback and consumer behavior; limiting signal availability based upona rules engine that automatically considers buyer identity, campaigntype, signal requested, price, redemption signal type, purchasequantity, past performance of signal, past performance of advertisingcampaign type, past performance of buyer, and combinations thereof;automatically correlating how the value of the information decays overtime and with respect to relevance to the objective of the advertisingcampaign(s); generating a value of signal relevance to the objectivebased upon consumer feedback, buyer behavior, and/or consumerreputation; receiving feedback from the buyer regarding qualities ofrelevance, correlation, and/or strength of the at least one signal;receiving inputs from third party observers that inform the efficacy ofsignal use for the advertising campaign(s) and correlation across amultitude of participants and multitude of signal uses; automaticallygenerating by the virtual marketplace a signal quality and a signalreputation based upon an assessment of signal performance compared withan objective of the at least one advertising campaign; and automaticallymatching the signals with buyer candidates having correspondingobjectives for buying the signals for use in advertising campaigns, andwherein the objectives include consumer behavior(s) to be influenced byadvertising.

In embodiments of a system for providing a signals marketplace in avirtualized computer network for using signals with advertisingcampaigns, the following components and their relationships areprovided: a remote server computer constructed and configured innetwork-based communication with a centralized database furthercomprising at least one index for signals data for use in advertisingcampaigns, and operable to automatically generate an assigned valuecorresponding to each unique signal in the indexed signals data; theindexed signals data being generated from receiving at least one signalfrom a first data source and at least one signal from a second datasource, wherein the signals originate from different distributed datasources controlled by different owners; wherein each of the signals hasa corresponding assigned value stored in the central database andassociated with its indexed corresponding signal; and, wherein eachassigned value is based on at least two factors is dependent upon asignal source value and a signal destination value corresponding toobjectives for using the at least one signal in advertising campaign(s).Preferably, the remote server computer automatically tracks the signalsdata source information and how it is correlated to an objectiveassociated with at least one advertising campaign.

The signal index is used for automated signal discovery and selectionfor advertising campaigns operating within a virtual marketplace forsignals. Signal selection for use in advertising campaigns andadvertising distribution channels is optimized based upon signalinformation provided by the corresponding signal owner(s). Signal typesinclude event signals, activity signals, behavior signals, relationalsignals, location signals, loyalty signals, purchase signals, redemptionsignals, and/or social signals. The value of the signal(s) includesrelevance to at least one buyer for objectives associated with at leastone advertising campaign. The value of the at least one signal may becorrelated with an estimated demand for products and/or services by thesignal owner and/or at least one consumer. Also, interaction of thirdparty observers may inform the efficacy of signal use for the at leastone advertising campaign and/or correlation across a multitude ofparticipants and multitude of signal uses.

By way of additional background for the signal marketplace of thepresent invention, it is a significant factor how the federated data forthe distributed signals is used. As opposed to “sharing lists” andjoining information within a single database. Federated data keeps rawdata localized with the owner responsible for disclosure, usage,pricing, security, and privacy. Within a data marketplace federated dataproviders (sellers) use signals as a way to protect sensitiveinformation. Signals (or indicators described hereinabove) are a type ofmeta data indicators that are based upon information in control of thedata sellers. These signals or indicators require input context and aresold for purposes explicitly defined within the signal marketplace. Forexample, in an AFFINITY_TO_CITY signal example, consumer flight recordsare never shared nor is the traveler's current location, rather thesignal response can reflect how often or how recently an object wasassociated with a given city. Signals create scarcity and enable controlboth of which are critical in any functional marketplace. The value ofany good is dependent on quality, availability, use, alternatives andprice. The virtual signal marketplace performs analysis on signalresults to determine effectiveness and value with respect to theobjectives of the buyer(s) and advertising campaigns. This informationis communicated to all participants, which informs the market ofpotential buyers and sellers.

In order for a signal to be controlled, the following factors orconsiderations are required: a) the signal's owner must have solediscretion on access and dissemination; b) the underlying data orinformation associated with the signal must also be controlled, sincethere can be no efficient market for the data or signals if they can beobtained elsewhere at a lower cost; c) a signal request must containinformation for the owner to release, which includes information on thebuyer, status of agreement with marketplace, agreement with the buyer(if any), consumer constraints (if any), price offered, planned usage,and combinations thereof; the marketplace processes, systems, andservices to protect the exchange, assure secure delivery, track usage,track value generated, settle funds, issue receipt, deliverauditability; and combinations thereof.

There are different control requirements on “consumer information” (orpersonally identifiable information or PII), proprietary information,object behavior information, object state information and other genericinformation. Some of these control requirements are driven by regulatoryissues or requirements. Some information can only be exchanged toanother party where an agreement is in place (i.e., a closed market).The control elements of a signal include the following: a) Signal type:Open, Restricted, PII; b) Signal Price: Market, floor; value generatedc) Buyer Information or profile; c) Consumer consent information (ifany).

After defining the signals to sell, and registering their correspondingrules and constraints, signals information is exchanged within thevirtual signal marketplace. There are five (5) primary data flowsbetween a signal provider and the signal marketplace or signal exchange,including:

-   -   1) RFQ. Request for quote. In this data flow, a prospective        buyer will request a price from signal provider. The signal        buyer provides: ID, signal(s) requested, input parameters (e.g.,        destination city, campaign type, price offered (per item and per        success), time, expiry time, minimum fill, maximum, settlement.        Along with this information the signal marketplace or signal        exchange will also provide Buyer ID reputation information.    -   2) RFQ Response. Signal provider will either respond with an        acceptance of order and time/quantity to fill, or a respond with        alternate price/denial. The signal marketplace or signal        exchange provides “optional” seller side software to manage this        interaction. Rules surrounding minimum price, data effectiveness        and buyer ID are incorporated to response. If offer is accepted,        signal marketplace or signal exchange will begin tracking of the        transaction order.    -   3) Purchase Confirmation. Buyers will issue purchase        confirmation for approved RFQs. Within our marketplace        agreement, a purchase confirmation is a commitment by the buyer        to pay for information within the terms of the Commerce Signals        Marketplace Agreement.    -   4) Signal Delivery. Signal provider provides the signals and        buyer confirms receipt    -   5) Settlement. Transaction Reference number, quantity provided,        time provided, item fees (if any), redemption fees (if any),        redemptions to date, redemption expiry period, amount paid,        amount paid to date, dispute reference numbers, receipt        confirmed.

The present invention creates a virtual market for data, wherein theunderlying or actual data has been transformed into signals orindicators to protect the underlying data, while still providinginformation relating to the data that is actionable by signal buyers.Each data seller can develop their own signals or indicators, controlledby their own rules and corresponding correlation engine(s), which datathey wish to sell to the outside world. For example a retailer coulddevelop a signal “affinity for golf” with a result of 0-1. Consumers whobuy golf balls, golf equipment would have a stronger signal based uponaffinity. Golf marketers could subsequently use this information tobetter inform advertising, in particular for targeted advertisingcampaigns.

Signal buyers participate directly with signal sellers and/or in themarketplace to identify objects that they wish to influence or measure.Other entities, such as campaign managers, publishers, media companiestake different roles in the measurement and influencing of the behaviorof objects through the use of signal information. The virtualmarketplace supports both buyer led transactions and seller ledtransactions. By way of example and not limitation seller led campaignscan begin with a publisher that has a relationship with a consumer of agiven profile. Buyers can bid for the influencing the behavior of thatconsumer through the marketplace. Marketplace participants can assumemultiple roles such as buyer, seller, and distributor.

Regardless of signal or indicator construction, signals must beregistered to participate in the signal marketplace. To provide securityto protect the signals within the marketplace, and to control signaldissemination or access and distribution to signals registered in thesignal marketplace, multiple object identifiers can be used. By way ofexample and not limitation these include encrypted forms of e-mailaddress, card number, phone numbers, device ID, location, loyalty cardand address as key for purchase of information from a seller. Thus thedata seller or signal provider controls the information that is sharedwithin the marketplace and with prospective buyers. These controlsrelate to access, viewing, downloading, copying, etc. and combinationsthereof.

Technical communication protocols for signals include writing data ofthe buyer into a buyer computer application; notifying buyer computerapplication to send XML file when data has been written to themarketplace order computer application data file by the buyer computerapplication; monitoring the marketplace order computer application queuefrom the marketplace execution application for notification that datahas been written to the data file by the buyer computer application;reading the data of the buyer computer application data file from themarketplace execution computer application upon detection ofnotification; notifying marketplace order computer application to sendXML file when data has been written to the seller computer applicationdata file by the marketplace order computer application; monitoring theseller computer application queue from the marketplace order applicationfor notification that data has been written to the data file by themarketplace order computer application; notifying a buyer computerapplication read file when data has been read by the seller computerapplication from the marketplace order computer application data file;monitoring the seller read file from the marketplace order computerapplication for notification that data has been read from to the buyercomputer application data file by the seller computer application toinitiate further writing to the marketplace order computer applicationdata file.

As illustrated in FIG. 7, the system 1000 is comprised of both dedicatedservers 1500 and servers operating within a private cloud 1700. Thededicated servers 1500 contain: processing units 1510, memory 1520 datastorage 1600. Dedicated servers 1500 are constructed, configured andcoupled to enable communication over a network 1200. Servers 1720operating within a private cloud 1700 leverage shared processing units1722A, shared memory 1725A and shared disk 1728A are also configured andcoupled to enable communications over a network 1200. The dedicatedservers 1500 and cloud servers 1700 provide for user interconnectionover the network 1200 using computers 1110 positioned remotely from theservers. Furthermore, the system is operable for a multiplicity ofremote computers or terminals 1300, 1400 to access the dedicated servers1500 and servers 1720A operating within a private cloud 1700 remotely.For example, in a request and reply architecture devices registered tomarketplace participants may interconnect through the network 1200 toaccess data within dedicated servers 1600 and within the private cloud1780. In preferred embodiments, the network 1200 is the Internet, or itcould be an intranet, or any other network suitable for searching,obtaining, and/or using information and/or communications, includingreceiving the notification and providing a response.

The system of the present invention further includes an operating system1515 installed and running on the dedicated servers 1500, enablingservers 1500 to communicate through network 1200 with the remote,registered devices. The operating system may be any operating system1515 known in the art that is suitable for network communication. Amemory within dedicated servers 1520 is interconnected with the server1500. Memory 1520 may be integral with server 1500 or may be external tothe server and interconnected therewith. A program of instruction 1620is resident in memory 1520 within the parameters set by the operatingsystem 1515 which accesses persistent storage 1600.

The system of the present invention further includes servers 1720A whichsupport multiple tenants 1710A within a private cloud 1700 that sharesystem resources through multiple virtual machines 1720A. Each virtualmachine 1720A consists of an operating system installed and running onshared processing units 1722A, shared memory 1725A, shared persistentstorage 1728A which access programmatic and user data 1782. The privatecloud 1700 communicates through the network 1200 with remote registereddevices. The operating system and virtual machines 1720A may be any suchkind known in the art that is suitable for managing multi-tenant cloudservices and network communication. Memory 1725A within shared cloudinfrastructure is interconnected with each associated virtual machine1720A according to the operating system running within the processingunity 1722A. A program of instruction 1782 is managed within memory1725A upon retrieval by disk management 1728A within the parameters setby the operating system 1720 and virtual machine. Additionally, thefollowing components are illustrated in FIG. 5: device 1100,instructions 1115, processor 1120, input/output interface 1130, bus1125, memory 1350, 1450, instructions 1610, 1785 applications 1630,1784, tenant N 1710B, server VM N 1720B, shared memory 1722B, shareddisk 1728B and shared CPU 1725B.

Additionally or alternatively to FIG. 7, FIG. 8 is a schematic diagramof an embodiment of the invention illustrating a computer system,generally described as 800, having a network 810 and a plurality ofcomputing devices 820, 830, 840. In one embodiment of the invention, thecomputer system 800 includes a cloud-based network 810 for distributedcommunication via the network's wireless communication antenna 812 andprocessing by a plurality of mobile communication computing devices 830.In another embodiment of the invention, the computer system 800 is avirtualized computing system capable of executing any or all aspects ofsoftware and/or application components presented herein on the computingdevices 820, 830, 840. In certain aspects, the computer system 800 maybe implemented using hardware or a combination of software and hardware,either in a dedicated computing device, or integrated into anotherentity, or distributed across multiple entities or computing devices.

By way of example, and not limitation, the computing devices 820, 830,840 are intended to represent various forms of digital devices 820, 840,850 and mobile devices 830, such as a server, blade server, mainframe,mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a smart phone, adesktop computer, a netbook computer, a tablet computer, a workstation,a laptop, and other similar computing devices. The components shownhere, their connections and relationships, and their functions, aremeant to be exemplary only, and are not meant to limit implementationsof the invention described and/or claimed in this document.

In one embodiment, the computing device 820 includes components such asa processor 860, a system memory 862 having a random access memory (RAM)864 and a read-only memory (ROM) 866, and a system bus 868 that couplesthe memory 862 to the processor 860. In another embodiment, thecomputing device 830 may additionally include components such as astorage device 890 for storing the operating system 892 and one or moreapplication programs 894, a network interface unit 896, and/or aninput/output controller 898. Each of the components may be coupled toeach other through at least one bus 868. The input/output controller 898may receive and process input from, or provide output to, a number ofother devices 899, including, but not limited to, alphanumeric inputdevices, mice, electronic styluses, display units, touch screens, signalgeneration devices (e.g., speakers) or printers.

By way of example, and not limitation, the processor 860 may be ageneral-purpose microprocessor (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU)),a graphics processing unit (GPU), a microcontroller, a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), aField Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD),a controller, a state machine, gated or transistor logic, discretehardware components, or any other suitable entity or combinationsthereof that can perform calculations, process instructions forexecution, and/or other manipulations of information.

In another implementation, shown in FIG. 8 a computing device 840 mayuse multiple processors 860 and/or multiple buses 868, as appropriate,along with multiple memories 862 of multiple types (e.g., a combinationof a DSP and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one ormore microprocessors in conjunction with a DSP core).

Also, multiple computing devices may be connected, with each deviceproviding portions of the necessary operations (e.g., a server bank, agroup of blade servers, or a multi-processor system). Alternatively,some steps or methods may be performed by circuitry that is specific toa given function.

According to various embodiments, the computer system 800 may operate ina networked environment using logical connections to local and/or remotecomputing devices 820, 830, 840, 850 through a network 810. A computingdevice 830 may connect to a network 810 through a network interface unit896 connected to the bus 868. Computing devices may communicatecommunication media through wired networks, direct-wired connections orwirelessly such as acoustic, RF or infrared through a wirelesscommunication antenna 897 in communication with the network's wirelesscommunication antenna 812 and the network interface unit 896, which mayinclude digital signal processing circuitry when necessary. The networkinterface unit 896 may provide for communications under various modes orprotocols.

In one or more exemplary aspects, the instructions may be implemented inhardware, software, firmware, or any combinations thereof. A computerreadable medium may provide volatile or non-volatile storage for one ormore sets of instructions, such as operating systems, data structures,program modules, applications or other data embodying any one or more ofthe methodologies or functions described herein. The computer readablemedium may include the memory 862, the processor 860, and/or the storagedevice 890 and may be a single medium or multiple media (e.g., acentralized or distributed computer system) that store the one or moresets of instructions 900. Non-transitory computer readable mediaincludes all computer readable media, with the sole exception being atransitory, propagating signal per se. The instructions 900 may furtherbe transmitted or received over the network 810 via the networkinterface unit 896 as communication media, which may include a modulateddata signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism andincludes any delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means asignal that has one or more of its characteristics changed or set in amanner as to encode information in the signal.

Storage devices 890 and memory 862 include, but are not limited to,volatile and non-volatile media such as cache, RAM, ROM, EPROM, EEPROM,FLASH memory or other solid state memory technology, disks or discs(e.g., digital versatile disks (DVD), HD-DVD, BLU-RAY, compact disc(CD), CD-ROM, floppy disc) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or any other medium that can be used to store the computer readableinstructions and which can be accessed by the computer system 800.

It is also contemplated that the computer system 800 may not include allof the components shown in FIG. 8 may include other components that arenot explicitly shown in FIG. 8 or may utilize an architecture completelydifferent than that shown in FIG. 7. The various illustrative logicalblocks, modules, elements, circuits, and algorithms described inconnection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be implemented aselectronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. Toclearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software,various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and stepshave been described above generally in terms of their functionality.Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or softwaredepends upon the particular application and design constraints imposedon the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the describedfunctionality in varying ways for each particular application (e.g.,arranged in a different order or partitioned in a different way), butsuch implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing adeparture from the scope of the present invention.

Certain modifications and improvements will occur to those skilled inthe art upon a reading of the foregoing description. The above-mentionedexamples are provided to serve the purpose of clarifying the aspects ofthe invention and it will be apparent to one skilled in the art thatthey do not serve to limit the scope of the invention. All modificationsand improvements have been deleted herein for the sake of concisenessand readability but are properly within the scope of the presentinvention.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method for using signals in advertisementcomprising the steps of: providing at least one signal for use inadvertising, wherein the signal(s) originate from and are controlled bycorresponding signal owners; providing and storing a signal index in acentralized database wherein the signal index is usable by prospectivebuyers to identify signals that may be relevant toward a given objectivein at least one advertising campaign; transmitting the at least onesignal to at least one signal buyer for the predetermined signal usagein the advertising campaign(s) wherein the predetermined signal usageincludes the at least one advertising campaign.
 2. The method of claim1, further including the step of optimizing the signal selection by thebuyer(s) of the at least one signal for the predetermined signal usagein the advertising campaign(s) based upon the objectives of thebuyer(s).
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the optimizing step includesconsideration of optimizing factors selected from the group consistingof: a signal price, signal correlation, a signal reputation, a signalperformance, a signal owner reputation, and combinations thereof.
 4. Themethod of claim 3, wherein the signal buyer determines the optimizationfactors for the at least one signal based upon the at least oneadvertising campaign.
 5. The method of claim 2 wherein the optimizingstep includes factors of: predictive accuracy, fidelity, relevance to anobjective, near-real-timeliness, frequency, recency, relationship of thesource of the signal, reputation of the signal, reputation of theseller, affinity to a target, usefulness to an objective associated withthe at least one advertising campaign, and combinations thereof.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, further including the step of the signal buyer(s)creating the advertising campaign using the at least one signal.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, further including the step of tracking theperformance of the at least one signal in the advertising campaign(s).8. The method of claim 7, wherein tracking occurs through feedbackobtained by observers, which may include publishers, retailers,consumers, payment companies, and/or other third parties.
 9. The methodof claim 1, wherein the step of transmitting signals is performedbetween a signal buyer and a signal seller operating within anagreement.
 10. The method of claim 1, wherein the buyers that haveidentified signals create an agreement with signal sellers, and whereinthe agreement contains terms that are enforceable by parties to a signalexchange.
 11. The method of claim 1, further including the step ofautomatically correlating the effectiveness of the advertising campaignusing the at least one signal.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein thecorrelating step includes an object correlation to other objects and/orobject behaviors to other objects and/or a signal correlation to othersignals.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one signalincludes a redemption signal associated with at least one advertisingcampaign.
 14. The method of claim 1, further including the step ofproviding feedback on the signal usage in the advertising campaign. 15.The method of claim 1, further including the step of automaticallymatching the at least one signals with advertising campaigns for signalbuyers, based upon the signal index.
 16. The method of claim 1, furtherincluding the step of providing the signal index for use in signaldiscovery and selection for advertising campaigns operating within avirtual marketplace for signals.
 17. The method of claim 1, furtherincluding the step of optimizing signal selection for use in advertisingcampaigns and advertising distribution channels based upon signalinformation provided by the corresponding signal owner(s).
 18. Themethod of claim 1, further including the step of receiving buyer goalsor objectives for advertising campaigns using the signal(s).
 19. Themethod of claim 1, further including the step of estimating demand forproducts and/or services based upon the signal(s).
 20. The method ofclaim 1, further including the step of automatically estimating a marketsize and/or a market type based upon the at least one signal.
 21. Themethod of claim 1, where random samples of other signals and varying theuse of defined signals defines the statistical performance, correlation,and covariance of the registered signals.
 22. The method of claim 1,further including the step of automatically generating a market size anda consumer profile based upon the at least one signal and its use in theadvertising campaign.
 23. The method of claim 1, further including thestep of linking the indexed signals to relational databases associatedwith marketing and/or advertising.
 24. The method of claim 1, furtherincluding the step of updating the signal index.
 25. The method of claim1, further including the step of determining which observers have datarelating to any specific object associated with the signals.
 26. Themethod of claim 1, wherein a value of the at least one signal is basedupon an estimated demand for products and/or services by the signalowner and/or at least one consumer, and wherein the value is dependenton both a seller and a buyer of the signals.
 27. The method of claim 1,wherein the interaction of third party observers inform the efficacy ofsignal use for the at least one advertising campaign and/or correlationacross a multitude of participants and multitude of signal uses.
 28. Themethod of claim 1, further including the step of aggregating thesignals.
 29. The method of claim 1, further including the step ofcreating a new signal and/or a synthetic signal from one or more signalsfrom at least one source.
 30. The method of claim 1, further includingthe step of linking the indexed signals to relational databases.
 31. Asystem for providing a signals marketplace in a virtualized computernetwork for generating signals from distributed data sources controlledby a multiplicity of owners comprising: a remote server computerconstructed and configured in network-based communication with acentralized database further comprising at least one index for signalsdata for use in advertising campaigns, and operable to automaticallygenerate an assigned value corresponding to each unique signal in theindexed signals data; the indexed signals data being generated fromreceiving at least one signal from a first data source and at least onesignal from a second data source, wherein the signals originate fromdifferent distributed data sources controlled by different owners;wherein each of the signals has a corresponding assigned value stored inthe central database and associated with its indexed correspondingsignal; and wherein each assigned value is based on at least two factorsis dependent upon a signal source value and a signal destination valuecorresponding to objectives for using the at least one signal inadvertising campaign(s).
 32. The system of claim 31, wherein the remoteserver computer automatically tracks the signals data source informationand how it is correlated to an objective associated with at least oneadvertising campaign.
 33. The system of claim 31, wherein the signalindex is used for automated signal discovery and selection foradvertising campaigns operating within a virtual marketplace forsignals.
 34. The system of claim 31, wherein signal selection for use inadvertising campaigns and advertising distribution channels is optimizedbased upon signal information provided by the corresponding signalowner(s).
 35. The system of claim 31, wherein the value includesrelevance to at least one buyer for objectives associated with at leastone advertising campaign.
 36. The system of claim 31, wherein thesignals marketplace remote server computer automatically tracks andmanages signal reputation and/or owner (seller) reputation.
 37. Thesystem of claim 31, wherein the signals and their corresponding ownersare registered and registration information is stored in the centralizeddatabase.
 38. A method for creating and using a virtual marketplace forvaluing and selling signals generated from distributed data sources thatare controlled by a multiplicity of owners for use in advertisingcampaigns, the method steps comprising: providing at least one signalfrom a first data source and at least one signal from a second datasource to a remote server computer for a signal marketplace or exchange;generating an index and a listing in a centralized database; wherein thesignals originate from different distributed data sources controlled bydifferent owners and the signals are indexed and listed in a centralizeddatabase and each of the indexed signals is linked to correspondingrelational databases; and using the signal index for automated signaldiscovery and selection for advertising campaigns operating within avirtual marketplace for signals.
 39. The method of claim 38, furtherincluding the step of optimizing signal selection for use in advertisingcampaigns and advertising distribution channels based upon signalinformation provided by the corresponding signal owner(s).
 40. Themethod of claim 38, wherein the signals provide a feedback correspondingto a behavior, an activity, and/or an event associated with at least oneadvertising campaign.
 41. The method of claim 38, wherein the listedindex provides for automated matching with buyer candidates havingcorresponding objectives for buying signals for use in advertisingcampaigns, and wherein the objectives include consumer behavior(s) to beinfluenced by advertising.
 42. The method of claim 38, wherein the atleast one signal includes a signal type selected from the groupconsisting of: event signals, activity signals, behavior signals,relational signals, location signals, loyalty signals, purchase signals,social signals, and combinations thereof.
 43. The method of claim 38,wherein the signal owner controls how the at least one signal iscreated, generated and/or constructed and how the at least one signal isused by the buyer for advertising campaigns.
 44. The method of claim 38,further including the step of monitoring performance of the at least onesignal compared with a corresponding objective associated withadvertising campaigns.
 45. The method of claim 38, further including thestep of automatically determining a relevance to an objective associatedwith the at least one advertising campaign for the at least one signalbased on comparison with consumer feedback and consumer behavior. 46.The method of claim 38, further including the step of limiting signalavailability based upon a rules engine that automatically considersbuyer identity, campaign type, signal requested, price, redemptionsignal type, purchase quantity, past performance of signal, pastperformance of advertising campaign type, past performance of buyer, andcombinations thereof.
 47. The method of claim 38, further including thestep of automatically correlating how the value of the informationdecays over time and with respect to relevance to the objective of theadvertising campaign(s).
 48. The method of claim 38, further includingthe step of generating a value of signal relevance to the objectivebased upon consumer feedback, buyer behavior, and/or consumerreputation.
 49. The method of claim 38, further including the step ofreceiving feedback from the buyer regarding qualities of relevance,correlation, and/or strength of the at least one signal.
 50. The methodof claim 38, wherein a signal quality and a signal reputation isautomatically generated by the virtual marketplace based upon anassessment of signal performance compared with an objective of the atleast one advertising campaign.
 51. The method of claim 38, furtherincluding the step of receiving inputs from third party observers thatinform the efficacy of signal use for the advertising campaign(s) andcorrelation across a multitude of participants and multitude of signaluses.